1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to endoscopic or laparoscopic surgery and more particularly to end effector assemblies for surgical instruments used therein.
2. Description of the Related Art
The trend in surgical procedures is to reduce the invasiveness of the procedure by reducing the size of the surgical incision. More and more frequently, the surgical incision is performed in the navel of the patient. For a laparoscopic surgical instrument, the outer shaft diameter is determined by the inner diameter of the ports (cannulae) with which the instrument will be used. As port size decreases to accommodate the reduced size of the surgical incision, the diameter/cross-sectional area of the end effectors of the surgical instrument must be reduced while the length of the end effectors must also be reduced to provide greater rigidity to reduce the susceptibility of the end effectors to deflection.
The resulting rigidity of the end effectors of the instrument thereby necessitates tight dimensional tolerances and a corresponding increase in material and manufacturing costs to provide the necessary rigidity.